Liz Claiborne, intent on clothing women up and down the fashion spectrum, said Thursday that it has agreed to buy the Los Angeles-area maker of Laundry clothing, a high-end label of trendy dresses and sportswear. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Laundry, led by designer Shelli Segal, joins an expanding collection of brands at Claiborne aimed at garnering younger shoppers who are willing to pay handsomely for their clothing.

A Vernon-based maker of lingerie is counting on it. Shirley of Hollywood is one of eight small, local companies sending representatives to South America this weekend as part of a weeklong trade mission to drum up foreign sales. The trip will take the firms to the capitals of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, where they'll meet with potential buyers and trading partners, as well as U.S. government trade officials in those countries.

As garment manufacturers fend off lawsuits over offshore sweatshops, state lawmakers reached an agreement Thursday to help guarantee that garment workers in California are paid when their employers go out of business. Manufacturers who design clothing and hire contractors to produce their lines must ensure that workers get paid if the contractors go belly up, under a bill passed by the Senate on Thursday and headed for approval in the Assembly.

Walking down a Los Angeles street or at an Ozomatli concert, you might spot someone wearing a T-shirt with the picture of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata or a "Brown Pride" graphic. "It's urban wear with a cultural twist to it," explains Anthony Cruz-Gonzalez, founder of Montebello's Trueroots Streetwear & Clothing Co. The 27-year-old, who works out of his Montebello home, is one of a handful of small L.A.

If you take the nickel tour of Arnold Lorber's textile plant in Carson, bring a phrase book. Make that several. On the shop floor, Lorber chats with workers in staccato Spanish, one of nine languages he has mastered in 50-plus years in the textile trade. He introduces a visitor to his Russian computer expert, a German dyer and an Israeli plant manager. He then touches the keypad of a sophisticated fabric finishing machine programmed in four languages: English, Italian, German and Spanish.

Tarrant Apparel Group, a Los Angeles-based clothier that supplies specialty and mass merchandise stores, lowered its earnings estimate for the year and revised downward its expected annual sales by 13%, to $415 million. The revisions are a result of an $80-million reduction in sales to Limited Inc., the company said. Those sales were down, Tarrant said, because Limited has taken advantage of depressed currencies by placing more orders in Asia, where Tarrant does not have operations.

Jennifer Blackwell steps inside a garment shop in downtown Los Angeles and strides toward the owner, past a clutter of eyelet-laced blouses and two women whose faces are covered with veils. "Hi, I'm Jennifer," she says, extending her hand and then a card. "I'm a broker for the California Fashion Assn." The man peruses her card. But before she has finished her pitch, he turns away and sneers, "Get out." Then he spits on her blue suede shoes.

She left Puebla, Mexico, seven years ago to work in the garment factories of Southern California. She thought the days of dirt-poor wages were long behind her. But things have not gone well for Hilda Aguilar. As sewing jobs chased cheap labor in Mexico or were lost to technology in the last two years, Aguilar's paycheck has shrunk by about 40%. She now earns far less than the state minimum wage of $5.75 an hour, but Aguilar is not about to complain.

Baba Bleecher is having a fashion passion moment. Spinning before her is Ford model Camerone Chambers in a killer gown adorned with black sequins, beads and etched flowers on sheer chiffon. It took Luanie Kologi--Bleecher's partner--three days to piece the garment together: an asymmetrical variation of Kologi's trademark "flame" dress that hugs the bosom but on the rest of the bod moves like a sinful Malibu fire. Burn, baby, burn.